01
Layout and structure
Walls removed or added, headers sized, point loads carried to the foundation, and shear replaced where an opening takes it out.
Renovate the whole home under one contract.
Layout, structure, mechanical trades and finishes on one agreement, one schedule and one superintendent, and no list of subcontractors for you to chase.
- Scope
- Multi-room, multi-trade, one agreement
- Sequence
- Six phases, each ending in a document
- Where
- Reno, Sparks, Carson City and the county towns
- Talk to us
- (775) 200-0648, Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM
01What the scope actually is
A whole-home renovation is a scope decision before it is a design decision.
Most people arrive here with a list: the kitchen is dated, two bathrooms need work, the floors do not match, and there is a wall they would like gone. One at a time that is four projects and four people who each assume somebody else is handling the electrical. Together it is one project.
The practical test is simple. If the work crosses more than one room and touches structure or the mechanical, electrical and plumbing runs, it wants a single contract. Opening a wall between a kitchen and a living room is not a kitchen job: it is a header, a possible point load (the weight concentrated on one spot and carried down to the foundation), a rerouted circuit, a relocated register, and a floor that now has to read as one surface.
So what we sell is sequencing and accountability: one scope document listing every line item, one schedule every trade works from, one superintendent answerable for today, and draws tied to milestones you can stand in front of. Renovations go wrong in the space between two contractors, and a single contract removes that space.
02How the job is sequenced
Six phases, and the document that ends each one.
A phase that cannot produce something you can read, check and keep is not a phase. It is a promise.
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01
Survey and feasibility
We measure the house as it is, not as the original plans said it would be: bearing walls, beam runs, panel capacity, the age of the supply and waste lines, and where the ducts actually go. What we cannot confirm until something is opened gets written down rather than glossed over. You get an as-built measure and a written estimate
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02
Design, layout and selections
Layout options against the structure we found, then dimensioned plans and elevations. Selections are made against named allowances with model numbers attached, so the drawings and the budget describe the same house. You get plans, elevations and a priced selections list
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03
Contract, permit and long leads
A line-item scope with a draw schedule tied to milestones. We prepare and submit the permit set to whichever counter your address falls under, and answer plan-review comments ourselves. Long-lead material is ordered now, against quoted lead times. You get a signed contract, an issued permit, order confirmations
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04
Protection, demolition and structure
Dust walls, floor protection and a defined crew path go in before a wall comes down. Then demolition, framing, headers and shear. Concealed conditions surface here (rot, undersized framing, a circuit nobody could find) as priced change orders, in writing, before the work happens. You get a framing inspection and any change orders in writing
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05
Systems and close-in
Mechanical, electrical and plumbing rough-in, then insulation, then drywall. This is where a whole-home job earns back the cost of planning it as one: every trade runs the same walls in the same week instead of cutting into finished work months apart. You get passed rough-in and insulation inspections
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06
Finishes, punch list and close-out
Tile, cabinets, counters, finish carpentry, paint and fixtures against a weekly look-ahead. Then we walk the job with you and write the punch list down rather than remembering it, take the final inspection, and release the last draw after you sign. You get a signed punch list and a close-out package
03Living in it, or not
Whether you stay in the house changes the sequence, the schedule and the price.
An empty house is faster and cheaper to renovate, and that is arithmetic rather than a sales line. With nobody in it, demolition runs in one pass, the trades overlap, and there is no dust wall to build and rebuild. An occupied house buys comfort with time, so we price both and let you choose with the numbers in front of you. Our whole-home cost notes explain why staying in the house moves a Reno number, and why a whole home is priced from a walkthrough.
If you are staying, the plan starts with a phasing drawing rather than a floor plan: which zone is a work zone in which weeks, where the barrier stands, which door the crew uses, which bathroom stays live, and where the temporary kitchen goes. Water, power and heat interruptions are scheduled in advance rather than discovered, and returns inside the work zone are sealed so the furnace does not distribute the demolition through the rest of the house.
If you are moving out, the sequence changes shape: demolition runs across the whole floor plan at once, each trade mobilises once, and the punch list comes forward. Either way it goes in the contract, because “we will work around you” is not a scope and cannot be scheduled against.
04What one contract covers
Eight scopes, one agreement, one person answerable.
Not every renovation includes all eight. Every contract we write states which ones it includes and which it does not.
02
Kitchen
Cabinet layout against the real plumbing and duct runs, counters, appliance rough-ins, and ventilation to the outside rather than to a filter.
03
Bathrooms
Waterproofing detailed before anyone chooses a tile, then drainage, fixtures and ventilation sized for the room rather than for the box.
04
Electrical, plumbing, HVAC
Panel capacity checked against what the finished house asks for, supply and waste replaced where it is at the end of its life, duct runs re-balanced.
05
Insulation and drywall
Cavities filled to the code edition your permit is reviewed under, air sealing at the top plate, then level-finish drywall.
06
Floors, trim and paint
One flooring plane across the rooms that should read as one, transitions detailed where they should not, trim scribed to what the house actually does.
07
Exterior renovation
Where the renovation reaches the outside: roofline, porch and footprint changes inside the same contract.
08
Permits and inspections
The permit set, the submittal, the plan-review responses, and every inspection booked against the trade calendar rather than after the fact.
Related scopes: additions and second storeys and ADUs and garage conversions.
05The craft
On a whole-house job, the order of operations is the product.
Anyone can install a cabinet. The part that decides whether a renovation finishes on the number it started on is knowing what has to be true before that cabinet goes on the wall, and refusing to hang it until it is.
So the drawings we care most about are not the pretty ones. They are the phasing plan, the demolition plan, and the single-line sketch of where the mechanical, electrical and plumbing runs go once the walls are open. Those three decide how many times a trade has to come back, and return trips are the largest controllable cost in the job.
It is also why we will sometimes tell you the sequence you asked for is dearer than the one we are proposing. That conversation belongs in design, while changing your mind is still free.
06Which counter your set goes to
Three building departments cover most of this footprint, and your address picks one.
A whole-home renovation is permit work everywhere in Northern Nevada; the only question is which authority reviews it. Inside Reno city limits that is the City of Reno’s Development Services, permit counter at 1 E. First St, submittals through the onenv.us portal. Inside Sparks it is Building and Safety at 431 Prater Way, on Accela, counter open 9:00 to 4:00 Monday to Friday (the city’s Building Permits page, read 24 September 2026). Unincorporated addresses (Verdi, Spanish Springs, Sun Valley, Washoe Valley, Incline Village) go to Washoe County’s Planning and Building Division at 1001 East 9th Street in Reno.
A Reno mailing address is not the same thing as a City of Reno address, and that distinction decides your plan review and sometimes your design. We establish it from the parcel rather than from the envelope.
Code edition matters too. Washoe County has adopted the 2024 International Residential, Energy Conservation and Wildland-Urban Interface Codes with the 2024 Northern Nevada Amendments; those took effect on 1 July 2025 and have been mandatory for submittals since 1 January 2026 (the county’s Adopted Building Codes page, read 24 September 2026). A set drawn to a superseded edition gets corrected in plan review, which costs weeks.
07Questions
Three questions we get before a whole-home contract is signed.
Estimates, allowances and change orders are answered on the home page. These are about running a renovation across a whole house.
With a physical barrier and a defined crew path, both drawn on the phasing plan before demolition starts. Dust walls go up at the zone edge, returns inside the work zone are sealed so the furnace does not distribute what we are making, and the crew uses one door. It is imperfect and we say so. You should not find dust behind the barrier.
Often, and where it can be we will draw it that way. The split has to follow the trades rather than the rooms, because closing a wall in phase one that phase two reopens costs more than doing both at once. So we look for a line the building agrees with, and each phase gets its own scope, draw schedule and close-out.
It depends on the scope and the jurisdiction, and it is one of the first things we establish. A structural, multi-trade renovation is normally one building permit with the mechanical, electrical and plumbing work carried as sub-permits, each with its own inspections. We do not invoice for a permit nobody needs.
09Start a conversation
Tell us how much of the house is in scope.
The first call is mostly about drawing the boundary: which rooms, whether structure moves, whether you are staying in the house. That boundary sets the schedule and the number more than any finish selection will.
Fastest way to reach us
(775) 200-0648
Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM. A person answers, and it is somebody who has been on a job site. The form goes to the same place, one business day behind the phone.
Request received.
We will call you back within one business day to set the walkthrough. If you need us sooner than that, call (775) 200-0648 now; we answer Monday to Friday, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM.